Test for Heteroscedasticity in Partially Linear Regression Models

Testing heteroscedasticity determines whether the regression model can predict the dependent variable consistently across all values of the explanatory variables. Since the proposed tests could not detect heteroscedasticity in all cases, more precisely in heavy-tailed distributions, the authors established new comprehensive test statistic based on Levene's test. The authors built the asymptotic normality of the test statistic under the null hypothesis of homoscedasticity based on the recent theory of analysis of variance for the infinite factors level. The proposed test uses the residuals from a regression model fit of the mean function with Levene's test to assess homogeneity of variance. Simulation studies show that our test yields better than other methods in almost all cases even if the variance is a nonlinear function. Finally, the proposed method is implemented through a real data-set.     

三维聚合物电解质膜燃料电池中水的输运模拟

针对新型螺旋形加压聚合物电解质膜燃料电池,提出了一种液态水生成和输运效应的数值模型.该数值模型基于燃料电池的物理机理、流体流动、传热导、多孔介质中的传质、电化学反应、含相变的多相流动、电流输运、多孔介质和固体导电区域中的位势场以及穿过聚合物膜的水的输运设计优化过程.在分析中还使用了燃料电池模型.例如,电化学模型--用于预测局部电流密度和电压分布;位势场模型--用于预测多孔介质以及固体导电区中的电流和电压;多相混合物模型--用于预测在多孔扩散层中的液态水和气体流;薄膜多相模型--用于研究气体流道中的液态水流.最后给出了聚合物电解质膜燃料电池液态水生成和输运的理论模型的数值结果,包括催化层和膜中的H2,O2和H2O的质量和克分子数的等值线图.     

Global trends of whole-genome duplications revealed by the ciliate Paramecium tetraurelia

The duplication of entire genomes has long been recognized as having great potential for evolutionary novelties, but the mechanisms underlying their resolution through gene loss are poorly understood. Here we show that in the unicellular eukaryote Paramecium tetraurelia, a ciliate, most of the nearly 40,000 genes arose through at least three successive whole-genome duplications. Phylogenetic analysis indicates that the most recent duplication coincides with an explosion of speciation events that gave rise to the P. aurelia complex of 15 sibling species. We observed that gene loss occurs over a long timescale, not as an initial massive event. Genes from the same metabolic pathway or protein complex have common patterns of gene loss, and highly expressed genes are over-retained after all duplications. The conclusion of this analysis is that many genes are maintained after whole-genome duplication not because of functional innovation but because of gene dosage constraints.     

Evolutionary relationship and species separation of four morphologically similar stichotrichous ciliates （Protozoa, Ciliophora）

Phylogenetic and taxonomic studies on ciliate protists using molecular approaches have been demonstrated to be very reliable to form strong conclusions and results. In the present work, species separation of some morphologically similar stichotrichous ciliates, two species of Pseudokeronopsis and two species of Apokeronopsis, was reexamined using amplified ribosomal DNA restriction analysis (PCRRFLP). Five of 10 restriction enzymes revealed species-specific polymorphic patterns, of which four similar stichotrichs could be significantly separated and identified. Among them, EcoR I offered almost no significantly different restriction fragment patterns, but the four species could be separated from one another and identified with Hae III. Distinctly different restriction digestion haplotypes and similarity indices separated the species, and were used to construct a phylogeny. Phylogenies based on ITS2 nucleotide sequences and ITS2 secondary structures supported the separation of Pseudokeronopsis and Apokeronopsis using RFLP analysis, although three Pseudokeronopsis carnea populations did not cluster together. In addition, phylogenetic analyses using multiple algorithms confirmed that these two genera formed two distinct groups within the urostylids.     

Translational control of intron splicing in eukaryotes

Most eukaryotic genes are interrupted by non-coding introns that must be accurately removed from pre-messenger RNAs to produce translatable mRNAs. Splicing is guided locally by short conserved sequences, but genes typically contain many potential splice sites, and the mechanisms specifying the correct sites remain poorly understood. In most organisms, short introns recognized by the intron definition mechanism cannot be efficiently predicted solely on the basis of sequence motifs. In multicellular eukaryotes, long introns are recognized through exon definition and most genes produce multiple mRNA variants through alternative splicing. The nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) pathway may further shape the observed sets of variants by selectively degrading those containing premature termination codons, which are frequently produced in mammals. Here we show that the tiny introns of the ciliate Paramecium tetraurelia are under strong selective pressure to cause premature termination of mRNA translation in the event of intron retention, and that the same bias is observed among the short introns of plants, fungi and animals. By knocking down the two P. tetraurelia genes encoding UPF1, a protein that is crucial in NMD, we show that the intrinsic efficiency of splicing varies widely among introns and that NMD activity can significantly reduce the fraction of unspliced mRNAs. The results suggest that, independently of alternative splicing, species with large intron numbers universally rely on NMD to compensate for suboptimal splicing efficiency and accuracy.     

Phylogenetic position of three Condylostoma species(Protozoa,Ciliophora,Heterotricheal inferred from the small subunit rRNA gene sequence

The systematically poorly known ciliate genus Conadylostoma was erected by Vincent in 1826.About 10 morphotypes have been reported,but any molecular investigations concerning this group SO far are lacking.In this work,the small subunit ribosomal RNA (SS rRNA)gene of three marine Conaylostoma species was sequenced,by which the phylogenetic trees were constructed by distance-matrix,maximum parsimony and Bayesian inference methods.The results show that(1)all the trees have similar topologies with high supports;(2)Condylostoma is mostly related to the genus Condylostentor;and(3)three Condylostoma species as well as Conadylostentor auriculatus cluster together and form a sister group with other heterotrichs.This is moderately consistent with the assessment of phylo-genetic relationships of Conaylostoma-related heterotrichs from the morphological information.The phylogenetic relationship of some other related heterotrichs,Peritromus,Fotlictllina,Stentor and Blepharisma,has been also discussed.     

Foreign exchange market prediction with multiple classifiers

Foreign exchange market prediction is attractive and challenging. According to the efficient market and random walk hypotheses, market prices should follow a random walk pattern and thus should not be predictable with more than about 50% accuracy. In this article, we investigate the predictability of foreign exchange spot rates of the US dollar against the British pound to show that not all periods are equally random. We used the Hurst exponent to select a period with great predictability. Parameters for generating training patterns were determined heuristically by auto‐mutual information and false nearest‐neighbor methods. Some inductive machine‐learning classifiers—artificial neural network, decision tree, k‐nearest neighbor, and naïve Bayesian classifier—were then trained with these generated patterns. Through appropriate collaboration of these models, we achieved a prediction accuracy of up to 67%. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

硼对镉胁迫下槐叶萍生理生化特性的影响

研究了镉对槐叶萍叶片生理生化特性的影响及硼对镉胁迫的缓解作用。结果表明，镉抑制了超氧化物歧化酶(S0D)、过氧化氢酶(CAT)活性，减弱了槐叶萍清除活性氧的能力，降低了叶绿素、蛋白质含量，使槐叶萍表现出一定的受害症状。而添加0．5mg／L的硼可显著提高SOD的活性，减慢CAT活性的下降速率，从而缓解了活性氧清除能力的下降速度，降低了O2^-的产生速率，延缓了叶绿素、蛋白质降解．提高了槐叶萍抵抗镉胁迫的能力。     

Cavity cooling of a microlever

The prospect of realizing entangled quantum states between macroscopic objects and photons has recently stimulated interest in new laser-cooling schemes. For example, laser-cooling of the vibrational modes of a mirror can be achieved by subjecting it to a radiation or photothermal pressure, actively controlled through a servo loop adjusted to oppose its brownian thermal motion within a preset frequency window. In contrast, atoms can be laser-cooled passively without such active feedback, because their random motion is intrinsically damped through their interaction with radiation. Here we report direct experimental evidence for passive (or intrinsic) optical cooling of a micromechanical resonator. We exploit cavity-induced photothermal pressure to quench the brownian vibrational fluctuations of a gold-coated silicon microlever from room temperature down to an effective temperature of 18 K. Extending this method to optical-cavity-induced radiation pressure might enable the quantum limit to be attained, opening the way for experimental investigations of macroscopic quantum superposition states involving numbers of atoms of the order of 10(14).     

Delta opioid receptors recycle to the membrane after sorting to the degradation path

Soon after internalization delta opioid receptors (DOPrs) are committed to the degradation path by G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR)-associated binding protein. Here we provide evidence that this classical post-endocytic itinerary may be rectified by downstream sorting decisions which allow DOPrs to regain to the membrane after having reached late endosomes (LE). The LE sorting mechanism involved ESCRT accessory protein Alix and the TIP47/Rab9 retrieval complex which supported translocation of the receptor to the TGN, from where it subsequently regained the cell membrane. Preventing DOPrs from completing this itinerary precipitated acute analgesic tolerance to the agonist DPDPE, supporting the relevance of this recycling path in maintaining the analgesic response by this receptor. Taken together, these findings reveal a post-endocytic itinerary where GPCRs that have been sorted for degradation can still recycle to the membrane.